Hello I'm Alex,
The saying goes, "You can't judge a book by its cover." I may not have much of a cover to show, but I do have a story to tell, and I hope you will find it intriguing. My parents started flipping houses before I was born, I'm told that was the family hobby. I've helped my family in some capacity in one way or another in our flips. I grew up living in a home for a year or two, slowly worked on the rehab, then it was off to the next one. New town, new friends-not the most stable thing for a child, but it was life. While it was not very fun to start new every few years, I did enjoy my adventures, and loved to get into a new house to see what we could do to improve its condition.
I was home schooled from second grade to high school years, and when I turned 15 we moved to Virginia from Connecticut. I've lived in the Bedford County and Lynchburg areas ever since, with a brief stint of time in Wilmington N.C. When I was 16, I went to work at a local flooring company in Bedford as a helper/installer, and worked there for almost 5 years. I got the privilege to work on the side with the owner's brother, who had his own handyman service doing a little bit of everything. We worked on everything from trailers and shacks to some of the most beautiful mansions at Smith Mountain Lake.
I had always shown an interest in sales, so I left the hard work and tried my hand at it. However, I wanted to work in a field with which I was comfortable, so I took a job at Lowe's Home Improvement for about five years. I worked in many of the departments throughout my career, and became the youngest Plumbing Specialist in the company, and then the youngest Kitchen Cabinet Specialist. While pursuing my career at Lowe's, I still dedicated myself to doing a tile job here, and a carpet job there when my schedule allowed. I enjoyed my time there, and it gave me the ability to see the other side of contracting and design.
During my time at Lowe's, a few of my friends from one of the local universities wanted to start a real estate investment firm in late 2007-early 2008. I was 20 years old by now, and eager to make something of myself. Mind you, none of us had a clue what we were doing. We had ideas and read books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, and Think and Grow Rich. We even went to RECON in Vegas to help us open our eyes a bit more to this idea we had. Since we were still young adults, we thought we had it all going for us. When the reality struck that we really didn't at all, you can imagine the shock our young minds experienced, and decided as a group we just weren't ready to move forward at that time. We never made a single deal, since all we wanted to do mainly was retail shopping centers and large scale multi-family. We had the idea of what we wanted to do, but we wanted to run and didn't think crawling was our thing. We even had investors who were interested in helping us out, and we had a few million at our disposable. Sadly, nothing ever came of it. Thank God I realized what was happening with the economy. We all grew apart, which is a shame because those guys were an awesome group. We all had potential, but didn't have the facts. However, I am happy to say they've all gone on to accomplish great things.
Currently, I'm an employed independent contractor working for a fleet company, and I'm scraping by income wise. My wife and I rent from my in-laws at the moment, but we've decided the time has come for us to pursue our own dreams and purchase our own home. While going through this whole house buying process, my cylinders for real estate have decided to go into overdrive. While trying to find a suitable place for our starter home, I got into my old "investors mindset," with the ARV in mind, and found a home we can live in and fix and make a $30-40k profit with the market being as it is right now. I already knew what all the offers and contracts said, because I'd memorized them 6 years before. When I was explaining all the contract info to my wife in front of our broker, our broker just stared at me shocked. She asked me on the spot if I had ever thought about getting my RE license She then went on to offer me a spot on her team after I am licensed!
So I've rekindled my love for RE. I continued to surprise my broker by finding deals she couldn't, and identifying high return ARV properties that would bring in real money after running comps for resale and renting them out. I am 28 years old now, and I am growing restless of working for other people. I genuinely hope this is the year I am going to do this, and look forward to following my dream job. Self employment has always seemed to suit me better, and by doing this I can also allow more time with my family, something I cannot get much of right now. I already have someone who's had property in the past and is willing to guide and fund me on a few projects he likes.
Recently, upon trying to find ways to further enhance my knowledge, I found Bigger Pockets and the podcast. I've listened to about 60 of them so far and I'm reading my Rich Dad Poor Dad, Think and Grow Rich, 4 Hour Work Week, and a few others books I have. I am doing this in the hopes of truly getting into the investor mindset.
I am attending my first meeting with the local REIA group here in Lynchburg, and can't wait to network! I've got about 3-4 deals I really want to work on, but I keep worrying about funding. I don't have a W-2 job, I drive my own vehicle, and at $.56 a mile, I make more in mileage so my P&L will always show a loss. Conventional Loans are out, so the idea of some wholesaling to allow me to do flips to build capitol makes sense. I'd like to get buy and hold property, but long term financing seems like a pain to get in my situation, so buying them outright seems right to me. The goals are to acquire 150+ units with 95+% occupied in 5 years, become a Broker and class A Contractor, and have my own property management company serving Lynchburg, Roanoke, and Charlottesville areas. Handling over 500+ properties and 5 Spec homes a year would be a wonderful accomplishment.
I need to start slow, work on getting my first deal done, and I'm not afraid of work. To be honest, I really miss it. I know I need to learn more about creative financing though, and how to work with an active experienced partner.
So long story short, but that's a pretty good picture of me. I'm really itching to do my first deal, but I guess closing on my house is the first deal I need to finish. If anyone has any questions or thoughts, please feel free to contact me!
